Website(s)

[reptileszz]

Hi everyone, I have gleaned a lot of info from this website RESCUE AND ADOPTION CENTER and wonder if you have opinions. When I am out and about I cant come here and post and get immediate gratification so I google around and this site is what told me that cory cats could be ok but to use at my own risk. Can someone let me know whether this is a decent page to refer to or if there is something better out there? Between faulty info online and the pet store owner whom I sort of trust (as much as you can trust a pet store owner) I still screwed up and bought the cats which I totally love in there so it sucks I have to take them back

Thank you so much
Carole

[Jenste]

That site isn't completely awful, it does cover most of the basics and it does say that cory cats are under the list of what you can not keep. Can I keep other aquatic life with my ACF?
I think just reading on the phone may have made it hard to distinguish between both lists. But I have tried a few times over the years to join as a foster home/take on one of the frogs and I never get a response from the site owner.

Unfortunately it's a situation where the store lead you wrong and it's just one of the common learning curves that comes to keeping these frogs.

[mpmistr]

That page is mostly accurate, it's probably the first page I read when I got into ACF though looking back some of the information is a bit dated.

Yes the person who wrote that page personally did not have problems with corydora fish BUT again, it's very rare that housing those two species together EVER works out. If I recall correctly the site does state to NOT house your frogs with corydora catfish and that his set up is out of the ordinary and should not be emulated. The page is also pretty old at this point, who knows what's happened between now and then? Not all ACF are the same but 99.9% will go for a corydora given half a chance the fish will often become lodged in the frogs throat by stabbing it in the mouth with spines .. choking the frog while corydora drowns.. which is a sad and painful death for BOTH..

This is taken straight from the "Can I keep other aquatic life with my ACF?" section:

Fish that should NOT be mixed with frogs

1. PLECOS, CORY CATS, CATFISH, or any type of fish with spines or barbs on its fins or body.
2. LARGE fish (Goldfish, Angelfish, Gouramis, etc.)
3. AGGRESSIVE fish (such as cichlids)
4. Crayfish
5. Newts, Salamanders, other amphibians of diffrent species, etc.
6. Turtles

So the site does point blank warn you to not house these species together. The bottom line is that ACF are highly predatory animals that can get as big as a human fist. ACF just don't belong with fish and the defensive spines of the corydora make it one of the worst possible pairings you can establish in you tank and 99.9% of the time will not end well.

When I decided to get african clawed frogs my LFS store told me to feed them flakes and keeping them with fish was fine as long as they were 'well fed'. I quickly found out that was a bunch of **** (there is no such thing as a well fed african clawed frog, they are opportunistic to the extreme and will eat anything at any time given half a chance).

Back when I bred (emphasis on I bred my own, feeder fish from fish stores are bad) feeder live bearing fish for my frogs I would place 6 fairly large mollies (please note: in hindsight a poor feeder fish, needs very hard and possibly even brackish water to thrive) in my frog tank and they were always gone by morning.. the frogs were only 6 months old and not even full sized adults. Now that they're getting close to 1 year old I couldn't imagine how quickly they'd run through 6 feeder fish.

Here's my frog 'Clyde' downing a 3 inch black molly when he was a scant 3 inches him(her)self on 9/20/12.


I personally love clawed frogs and corydoras, very neat animals.. I actually keep both in my home aquariums, in separate tanks.

[rodsboys]

I agree with the previous comments. I also have a separate Cory tank. They are too cute not to own.
Jenna- for a while she was running that rescue off of the Yahoo group. I believe she no longer does it now. I am thinking about doing something similar up here. I run into a fair share of frogs up here that could use good homes and I get approached by potential good owners in search of frogs.

[reptileszz]

Well dont i feel stupid. Thats not the site that came up when i googled in the store. Fish to Keep with My Frog is the one. Ugh. Sorry for the confusion. If only the other one was the one that came up.

Thanks. I am most likely setting up a tank for the cats today as they are really cool.

[Jenste]

I adore my cories. I have sterbai now due to my discus but in the past I have had albinos and peppered. Peppered my actually be my favorite but I just don't have a suitable tank for them, yet! I may be redoing my 26 gallon bow so I can raise guppies as treats for my discus and angelfish. I just have to wait until I rehome the remainder of my oldest angelfish fry to free up the tank. They breed like freaking rabbits.

[Jenste]

If you notice that the Corydoras has two asterisk marks beside it, then to the right is a disclaminer "**WARNING: Corydoras catfish are one of the most dangerous fish to keep with your frog they have spines which can choke the frog if it decides to eat the fish. I have Corydoras listed on this site because I personally have not had any problems with them, but thanks to several emails I now know other people have. If you choose to keep them it will be at your frogs own risk."

In the future just plan ahead any additions for either fish or frog tanks. Do the research ahead of time and don't give in to any impulse buys. Pet store employees have one objective - to sell. Don't take their word on most suitable tankmates. The don't recommend schooling/shoaling sizes, buying tanks for adult sizes of fish etc etc. Fish in the petstores, unless returned by a previous owner are mostly babies. People seem to think they stay that size and run into a lot of overcrowding issues.
On many of my fish forums the main time people experience problems is due to incompatible tank mates.

[mpmistr]

Well dont i feel stupid. Thats not the site that came up when i googled in the store. Fish to Keep with My Frog is the one. Ugh. Sorry for the confusion. If only the other one was the one that came up.

Thanks. I am most likely setting up a tank for the cats today as they are really cool.

Yes corydora are very awesome fish, I keep a small school of 6 (there were 7 but he became sick, had no barbels when I purchased him.. they started to grow back but then I found him stuck to the filter intake unable swim and then died shortly after being placed in a hospital tank). I love them but I find they are very skittish fish (at least mine are). Every time I go near the tank they *POOF* disappear into the plants and driftwood!

My best advice for you with these frogs is to keep one, SINGLE frog (no fish, no snails, nothing.. one frog, period) in your largest tank and drop the water levels to 4 inches below the top of the tank.

When I got into ACF I kept a single frog for roughly 3 months until I got the hang of caring for them. I started with zero knowledge about aquatic frogs as well. My frog was kept in an uncycled tank (luckily cycled by using a friends 'established' Whisper 10i to speed it up), I had no idea how to feed them (was given fish flakes by the LFS), and kept them with fish (Zebra Danios which developed Ich!), an apple snail which was harassed by the frogs to death, and a heater (wasn't necessary, possibly kept too warm..), I even had one of my frogs jump out of the tank and fall 4 feet on to hardwood floor (he luckily survived unscathed, but again, was lucky) ect. Despite all that, my first frog (the albino one) is still alive and he's (she?) as fat and happy as a clam to this day.

Once you get into the groove of keeping these frogs and your frog is healthy and thriving you can consider adding an additional frog. That's how I would do it, go slow and learn the ropes with one frog to start it's easier to ease into it.

[rodsboys]

As long as we're talking cories, I have 5 peppered, 6 panda, 7 albino bronze, 2 regular bronze, and 5 " Julii". All on my 40 long tank. The albinos have spawned a couple of times. I am going to try my hand at raising them soon. Peppered and panda are still growing out and I need a Julii female to go with the 1 f/4m set I have now.

[reptileszz]

OK, about the cories. I can set them up in a 10 gallon. That is all there is space for anywhere in this house and it is a stretch. We are talking on top of my husband's bureau in the bedroom. If I got 3 more would they be ok in a 10 gallon schooling around? I plan on using water from the established tank but will have to use the 3 cories to cycle a new filter. Maybe I should just bring them back? Seriously will do whatever you guys say here. I hope the petstore will refund/store credit me for them if I take them back.

Thanks,
Carole

[Jenste]

If you are using an uncycled filter then there is no reason to move old water over - water is not cycled so all you are doing is putting them in dirty water that the filter has no way of cleaning for them.

What kind of cories are they? A 10 gallon will be a little tight for 6 but certainly doable if set up correctly. Normally I would say to make sure you wait to buy new ones until you are done cycling, but since you will not have another quarantine tank it will be up to you. When (if) you buy more, make sure it is the same species.

Sand is very important due to their barbles. Do not keep them with gravel. Don't fill up a lot of space with decor. Plants are fine as they will help while going through a cycle but avoid any other decor.

Because it will be uncycled, daily partial waterchanges are going to need to be done for a couple months and do not replace the filter media or you will throw away all your growing bacteria colonies.

In the end, it is up to you as to whether or not you want to keep them. You will also have to decide if you want to buy more now from the same shop, before cycling is done, you will have to do larger daily water changes to deal with the higher bioload. If you wait until after cycling before buying more then you will have to either figure out a way to quarantine the new additions or not quarantine which means you risk entering a disease but won't put more fish through the cycling process. It's a tricky situation and only you will be able to figure out what works best for you.

You could also return the cories and keep the 10 gallon on hand to use as a future quarantine tank for any new frogs.

[rodsboys]

Cories do not do well as cycling fish. Try to transfer over some media, water will do nothing for you so just use new declorinated water. 6 cories will be fine in a standard 10 gallon for most species. A lot of breeders do 10 gallons for small breeding groups.

[reptileszz]

OK, sorry to be so OT here but... what if I bought a filter that could utilize the same bio ball thing's that are in my very established turtle tank? Could I put some of them (not all of them obviously) into the new filter thereby getting some precycling?

Thanks,
Carole

PS could also cut the foam thingy in there and use part of that apparently if I get a fluval in tank filter. The media looks similar enough to put in there even if just in pieces.

[rodsboys]

OK, sorry to be so OT here but... what if I bought a filter that could utilize the same bio ball thing's that are in my very established turtle tank? Could I put some of them (not all of them obviously) into the new filter thereby getting some precycling?

Thanks,
Carole

That would be the way to go. I transfer media everytime I setup something new and when I shut down setups I transfer the media back to an existing tank to keep it alive. I have some media that has been alive for years

[reptileszz]

Cories do not do well as cycling fish. Try to transfer over some media, water will do nothing for you so just use new declorinated water. 6 cories will be fine in a standard 10 gallon for most species. A lot of breeders do 10 gallons for small breeding groups.

I cant transfer over media from this filter. It is a single cartridge plus biowheel.

Thanks

[reptileszz]

That would be the way to go. I transfer media everytime I setup something new and when I shut down setups I transfer the media back to an existing tank to keep it alive. I have some media that has been alive for years

Excellent! I will do this! Off to the store to get a filter

[Jenste]

That would work fine. I have done the same and squeezed bioballs into most of my filters.

[mpmistr]

You know I forgot to mention this a while back but I read on WetWebMedia (which is a pretty good site for expert advice btw) that the BioWheels on Marineland filters can turn into serious nitrate factories, over time. Your set up has been running for what? 8 years? If you are still having high nitrates have you considered removing the wheel and seeing if that helps (like remove it and test the water 1 week later)?

[reptileszz]

I will have to look into that. I have not checked the nitrates since last weekend. There have been several minor water changes since then and the addition of new plants and sand. We shall see.

Thank you!
Carole